PhD defence Y.S. (Rosa) Won

This study explores and opens a possibility of looking into cities with a different perspective. It is noting that this perspective is constructed not by contrasting the standard economic approaches, but by widening the scope of the economic thinking way via probing the notion of value. So, this thesis draws on a Value based approach (VBA) of Klamer. In the sense that cities create not only economic value, but also social and cultural values, the VBA provides a useful foundation to make sense of different values that cities produce and reproduce. Why do the other values count? Social and cultural values add to the qualities within cities. And qualities matter in the new economy. Following this institutional schema, this thesis attempts to develop a new framework methodologically as well as theoretically. Based on the Five sphere model of the VBA, the new theoretical framework introduces important notions of a shared practice, and willingness to contribute. And the notion of a commons follows (Ostrom, 1990). More specifically, this study situates those concepts within the context of contemporary cities, and describes what the differences are from the standard economic approach and how those notions provide a constructive understanding on the phenomena recently emerged in cities. Moreover, this thesis contributes to a new design of a methodological framework through which the application of this theoretical approach and analytical technique could be applied to assessing what value is important in neighbourhoods or cities. The primary purpose of this attempt is to trace out different qualities of cities or neighbourhoods via hermeneutic analysis on labour characteristics, social and cultural characteristics by means of Location Quotients, Big data analysis, and Bayesian approach. For the sake of empirical analysis, two case studies bring in: Seoul in South Korea and Amsterdam in The Netherlands. The overall contribution of this study is to pave the way to make sense of why qualities matter in the contemporary cities, and to characterise the different qualities of cities. It is worthy to mention that the consequences of this thesis is not only for policymakers and urban practitioners promoting urban creative transition, but also for anyone searching for a creative neighbourhood, city or block to which they can belong. It became more and more apparent that the question of why some cities in the new economy context do better job than others cannot be solved by calibrating economic outcomes. There is no one solution to dealing with urban dynamics and different values that cities create. Therefore, this thesis attempts to realistically answer the question of how people come to be cognisant of the different qualities that cities possess. However, this research has limitations. The methodologies are not wholly capable of accounting for social and cultural qualities. For the sake of refined comparative analysis between different neighbourhoods or cities and visualising social and cultural qualities more substantively, further researches are needed. Albeit there is still much work to be done, this thesis nevertheless attempts to open up new possibilities for cities to understand their local dynamics and characterise the different qualitative conditions that together shape society.

The public defence will take place at the Senatehall, 1st floor of the Erasmus Building, Campus Woudestein. The ceremony will begin exactly at 09.30 hrs. In light of the solemn nature of the ceremony, we recommend that you do not take children under the age of 6 to the first part of the ceremony.